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Nov 24, 20

This Week In Fascism #84: This Is What is Sounds Like, When Chuds Cry

Welcome fellow antifascists!

This week we have updates from the antifascist front-lines, Trump hiring white nationalists on his way out the door, a Proud Boy troll being outed at North Carolina State University after doxxing community members, Trump’s legal team attempting to connect ‘ANTIFA” with conspiracy theories surrounding the election, Sheriff Clarke urging Proud Boys to attack Black Lives Matter and much more!

There’s a lot to cover – so let’s dive in!

News

Antifascists Face Down Proud Boys and Groypers in Atlanta and Sacramento

In Atlanta, anti-racist and antifascist groups mobilized against a “Stop the Steal” rally featuring far-Right militias, white nationalist Groypers, and the far-Right street gang, the Proud Boys.

In Sacramento, clashes broke out between Proud Boys and Trump supporters at another rally at the state capitol and antifascist and anti-racist groups. Several folks were arrested – please donate to help them here.

Trump White House Appoints Two White Nationalists to Government Positions

The White House has appointed two white nationalists to government roles since Trump’s loss in the presidential election earlier this month. The first appointee, Darren Beattie, was picked for the Commission for the Preservation of American Heritage Abroad, has been tasked with preserving sites related to the Holocaust. This decision drew sharp criticism from Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), who asked the administration to rescind the appointment. Beattie was previously fired as a White House speech writer in 2018 after it came to light that he had attended a white nationalist gathering two years prior, where he appeared on a panel alongside viciously racist VDare founder Peter Brimelow. ​​​​​​​After being fired from the White House, Beattie was then hired as a speech writing consultant by Trumpian and far-Right connected Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz.

The annual H.L. Mencken Club conference Beattie attended in 2016 also featured John Derbyshire and Robert Weissberg, both fired from the National Review for being too racist. White nationalist Jared Taylor of American Renaissance was in attendance along with Alt-Right leader Richard Spencer of the National Policy Institute (NPI), who had also been a featured speaker at previous events. Since then, Beattie has enthusiastically retweeted and promoted white nationalist and Unite the Right marcher, Nick Fuentes, leader of the Alt-Right 2.0 Groypers current.

Pat Buchanan, Paul Gotfried, and Richard Spencer at M.L. Mencken Club event. SOURCE: IREHR

The administration also appointed Jason Richwine as deputy undersecretary of commerce for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Richwine, a proponent of using IQ test results to limit immigration into the country, was ousted from the Heritage Foundation in 2013 after publishing an anti-immigrant study titled, “The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer,” that was widely criticized, even by conservatives. In his Harvard dissertation, Richwine wrote that Latinx people have lower IQs than white people, and argued that only those with high IQs should be admited into the United States to deter “underclass behavior.” He wrote two articles for AlternativeRight.com, founded by Richard Spencer, and helped author reports published by SPLC-designated hate organization Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a Nativist think-tank.

As Christopher Mathias wrote for the Huffington Post, Richwine, like most Trump administration appointees, will be expected to submit a resignation letter when Biden takes office. Beattie, however, is set to serve a three year term if his appointment isn’t rescinded.

Trump’s Legal Team Hosts Press Conference Alleging Mass Voter Fraud; Venezuelan and Chinese Influence in US Election

On Thursday November 19th Doland Trump’s legal team, led by Rudy Guliani, held a roughly 90-minute press conference alleging that the results of the 2020 presidential election were illegitimate. “[The American people] elected Donald Trump,” stated Guliani, “They didn’t elect Joe Biden.” During this briefing, Guliani, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis claimed that large swaths of ballots counted after election night were illegal. They attacked the media for failing to report on the supposed scandal, asserted they had identified and confirmed enough illegal ballots to overturn the results of the election, and cited Venezuela, China, and George Soros as bad actors in the alleged fraud. ​​​​​​​According to Guliani, “We use largely a Venezuelan voting machine, in essence, to count our votes. If we let this happen, we’re gonna become Venezuela. We can’t let this happen to us. We cannot let these crooks…steal an election from the American people.”

Sidney Powell took the mic to claim that large amounts of ballots are counted outside of the country by a company called Dominion, which “specializes in voter fraud.” She also claimed that the voting software used in several states was designed in Venezuela to enable Hugo Chavez to steal the election, that our voting machines were rigged to flip votes from Trump to Biden, and that George Soros associates were tied to Dominion. Powell even repeated a baseless conspiracy theory promoted by Michelle Malkin stating that a Smartmatic patent holder named Eric Coomer was recorded on a call with “ANTIFA,” saying that he had rigged the election for Joe Biden. Jenna Ellis took the stage briefly to preemptively scold the press for criticizing the team’s lack of evidence, before Rudy Guliani returned to suggest, disturbingly, that we need another national intelligence agency instead of the FBI in order to solve the alleged corruption. After the press conference, the White House attempted to distance themselves from Powell, who is a long time Qanon supporter.

FBI Data Shows 2019 Was The Deadliest Year For Hate Crimes On Record

On Monday, November 16th, the FBI released a report that shows hate crimes in 2019 were the highest they’ve been since 2008. The FBI defines hate crimes as crimes motivated by bias about race, color, sexual orientation, religion, gender expression, disability, or national origin. The data is collected by law enforcement agencies who volunteer it, which creates inherent problems with this method of collection such as police not accurately reporting or identifying hate crimes or, as we’ve seen, law enforcement agencies outright lying. According to the Huffington Post, “About 86% of law enforcement agencies that sent their hate crime statistics to the FBI in 2019 reported they’d seen no hate crimes in their jurisdictions.”

The picture provided by the FBI is horrifying and much worse than the report indicates. That said, there are some statistics that are certainly worth mentioning. In 2019:

  • 51 people lost their lives to hate crimes – 112% increase from 2018
  • 58% of hate crime victims were targeted because of race or ethnicity; half of those targeted were Black
  • 14% increase in anti-Jewish hate crimes
  • Anti-Hispanic hate crimes increased by 9%
  • Gender identity-based hate crimes increased by 19%
  • The data shows a total of 7,314 hate crimes reported last year, a 2.7% increase from the year before

In the same article, Brian Levin, the executive director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at CSU San Bernadino states, “We’ve seen a terrible increase in homicides,” adding that there “seems to be a shift where extremism has become much more of a do-it-yourself operation.” Levin goes on to assert that, “‘Lone assailants,’ are being radicalized in a “subculture where this kind of directed violence is becoming legitimized.’ This type of terrorism has a name. It’s called stochastic terrorism, and places like Facebook, Telegram, and Parler are hotbeds for it. Stochastic terrorism relies on mass communications to motivate individuals into acts of violence.

Antifascists have been tracking and disrupting stochastic terror networks like Attomwaffen Division, The Base, Feuerkrieg Division and other accelerationist groups who rely on stochastic violence to move the state into civil war against the people by collapsing democracy. The idea behind stochastic terrorism, as we wrote back in This Week in Fascism #9:

Mark Hamm and Ramon Spaaij’s The Age of the Lone Wolf Terrorism defines “stochastic terrorism” as “the use of mass media to provoke random acts of ideologically motivated violence that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.”

The combination of Donald Trump’s open acceptance of white nationalist groups; local, state and federal inaction to hold law enforcement agencies accountable for their atrocities; and big tech companies looking the other way when it comes to hate speech on their platforms provides fertile ground for those who wish to cause harm to marginalized communities. As ignored and under-reported as hate crimes are, our political climate almost guarantees we will watch instances continue to occur with impunity.

Former Milwaukee County Sheriff Calls for Proud Boys to Go After Black Lives Matter

Former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke announced to a crowd of Trump supporters on November 16th that Wisconsin should have a Proud Boys chapter, “because they’re the only ones with the courage to get in the face of Black Lives Matter.” The Defend Your Vote rally was organized by the Republican Party of Milwaukee County, took place at Serb Hall in Milwaukee. Shortly after Clarke’s comments, the city of Milkwaukee’s Health Department shut down the rally for violating health code, social distancing and mask rules and fined the owners of Serb Hall $2,000 for those violations.

Before getting cut off, Clarke stated the Proud Boys are: “Pro-free speech, pro-gun rights, glorifying the entrepreneur, venerating the housewife, reinstating the spirit of western chauvinism, that’s what the Proud Boys stand for.”

The Proud Boys are an SPLC-designated hate group and pro-Trump street gang who have a history of extreme violence and bigotry. Thanks to Trump’s considerable support for the Proud Boys and other white nationalist and far-Right organizing, it’s no surprise at all the members current and former, of local law enforcement have found a stage to offer their support as well. Republican State Senator Chris Kapenga was also in attendance and told Wisconsin Channel 12 News, “I did not hear him say that but I don’t know much about the Proud Boys.” Wisconsin already has an active Proud Boys chapter.

Feds Say Former U.S. Marine Nazis Active in Iron March Chats, Manufactured and Sold Firearms; Wanted to Target BLM

Four men with ties to neo-Nazi organizing, three of whom previously served in the Marine Corps, were charged last week with manufacturing and distributing weapons in 2019. These men who called themselves “Death Squad” and were active in the IronMarch neo-Nazi forum where they traded antisemitic and racist memes, shared bigoted ideology, organized the acquisition and distribution of weapons and recruited for a “modern day SS.” IronMarch was the neo-Nazi forum from which gave birth to the accelerationist group Attomwaffen Division as well as Vanguard America, which re-branded into Patriot Front, among and several others.

According to a press release from the Eastern District of North Carolina’s Department of Justice, “This week, Paul James Kryscuk, 35, Liam Collins, 21, Jordan Duncan, 26, and Justin Wade Hermanson, 21, were charged via a superseding indictment obtained in the Eastern District of North Carolina. Collins and Duncan are former Marines assigned previously to Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina.”

An article published by The News and Observer states, “Collins was born in Sweden but moved to New Jersey in high school and was stationed at Camp Lejeune from 2017 to 2020.” A separate article published by the Idaho Statesman indicates, “Collins spoke with Kryscuk over the site about the potential group, writing about the need for ‘laying the framework for a guerilla organization and a takeover of local government and industry,’ according to the superseding indictment. He added that they needed to buy property in remote areas that were ‘already predominantly white and right leaning, networking with locals, training, farming, and stockpiling.'”

Initially, Collins and Kryscuk were the primary members involved in the organization and acquisition of guns and gun parts, as well as the sale and distribution. After some time, Collins was able to successfully recruit Duncan and Hermanson into the operation. Also indicated in the press release, “…from May 2019 to the present, Collins made multiple money transfers through his personal account to Kryscuk to purchase firearms to include a 9mm pistol and suppressor and a short barrel rifle. In turn, Kryscuk purchased items from vendors to manufacture the firearms and suppressors.”

Eventually they relocated to a desert outside of Boise, Idaho to train. It was at this training camp that the four men made a propaganda video showing the group doing live-fire training with short-barrel and assault style rifles. The group wore skull masks and posed together while doing the Roman salute under an image of the black sun. The black sun, or Schwarze Sonne (sometimes called a sonnenrad), is a germanic/pagan symbol that has been widely used in neo-Nazi imagery. The text at the end of the video said “Come home white man.” Kryscuk’s car was reportedly seen at two separate Black Lives Matter protests over the summer and “[i]n October, Kryscuk and Duncan discussed shooting protesters in Boise.”

If convicted, Kryscuk and Collins face 20 years in prison, Hermanson faces 10 years, and Duncan faces five years.

Doxxes

Chadwick Jason Seagraves, Proud Boy of Garner, North Carolina

Anonymous Comrades Collective came through with the identity of Proud Boy Chadwick Jason Seagraves. Seagraves, in addition to other alarming information, was discovered due to a massive data dump of information about leftist activists in Portland, Oregon and Asheville, North Carolina. Anonymous Comrades Collective were able to find Seagraves because his name was in the metatdata attached to the files in the data dump.

Seagraves works in IT for the libraries at North Carolina State University, where he has unfettered access to technology and databases. One of the ways ACC was able to connect Seagraves to the data was through a Twitter account @roosterghost, who, from time to time, would offer large amounts of information to big far-Right Twitter trolls and neo-Nazi collaborators like Jack Posobiec. ACC also indicates that based on timestamps, Seagraves spent a considerable amount of time at work, researching and compiling information on leftist activists, Black and Brown people and queer people.

There is much more to this story, so please head over to Anonymous Comrade’s Collective’s blog for the rest. Those who want to take action, please consider reaching out to North Carolina State University and kindly ask them why they continue to employ a member of the far-Right pro-Trump street gang, the Proud Boys.

North Carolina State University
Phone: 919.515.2011
University Libraries Department

Edward Jeremy Dawson, Patriot Prayer Associate & Wife Michelle Dawson, Patriot Prayer Supporter of Tigard, Oregon

 

Rose City Antifa released the identity of #MillionMAGAMarch attendee and misogynist, Edward Jeremy Dawson, a Patriot Prayer affiliate, and his wife Michelle Dawson of Tigard, Oregon. On November 13th, independent journalist Laura Jedeed was in Washington, DC to report on the #MillionMAGAMarch protests happening at the Capitol when Ashley McCauley, a Proud Boy affiliate from Portland, recognized her and immediately shouted, “This is Portland Antifa here!” Dawson then approached Jedeed, repeatedly hurled epithets at her and told her that he “looks forward to seeing [her] in the fucking lobby again.” This interaction incited more violent rhetoric from the crowd of angry MAGA supporters that had pretty quickly surrounded her, who then attacked Jedeed with thinly veiled violent and misogynistic threats.

On November 20th, Dawson’s wife Michelle posted a widely-circulated video of herself weeping to the camera because Dawson had lost his job working for Charter Mechanical.

Alexander D. Wilkinson, Disinformation Troll & Fascist Bigot of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Antifascist researcher and activist White Rose AFA released the identity of a writer for disinformation platform National File, Alexander D. Wilkinson. Wilkinson aka Orwell N Goode aka Lionel Du Cane/Cain has been hiding in plane sight amassing 125,000 followers on his now defunct twitter profile. Most of his followers are neo-Nazis. Many of his articles on social issues are just outlets for his hatred of the LGBTQ* community, Muslim people, and leftist activists. For more on Alexander, including screenshots of his posts and his connections to other fascist networks, head over to the thread.

Luke Kendrat, Nick Fuentes Stan and Far-Right Bigot of Leesburg, Virginia

Our comrades at Twilight Zone AFA have identified Luke Kendrat, a self-identified Christian Orthodox student at George Mason University who promotes racist, fascist, reactionary, and anti-Semitic ideas on social media. According to Twilight Zone AFA, Kendrat uses a similar style of reaching his followers as known white nationalist and Groyper leader Nick Fuentes, creating a webshow called “Orthodoxy First” where he works extensively to “red pill” members of the Eastern Orthodox Christian community of which he is a part.

Anti-Semitic post from Kendrat on his Instagram

Kendrat is apparently heavily influenced by Eastern Orthodox anti-Semite and ultra-nationalist fascist, Corneliu Codreanu. Codreanu was the founder and leader of the Iron Guard, which by the end of the 1930’s, was the third largest fascist movement in Europe and combined fascist ideology, anti-Semitism, and Orthodox Christian martyrdom.

Kendrat spreads anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to his viewers and organizes meet-ups at his favorite Orthodox Christian Church. Those who are concerned about Luke Kendrat’s violent ideology and proximity to vulnerable community members are encouraged to kindly reach out to George Mason University and ask about their safety and discrimination policies.

George Mason: 1 (703) 993-1000
Their Twitter DMs are open

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A weekly roundup of the latest and greatest happenings in the anti-fascist world. Each column features a roundup of news, actions, doxxes and current calls to action.

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